Make The Holidays Truly Meaningful

GOD SQUAD RABBI MARC GELLMAN & MONSIGNOR THOMAS HARTMAN

Q. I want to volunteer at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving with my family. I want my kids to truly understand how lucky they are. My wife says this will ruin Thanksgiving, and besides, her family is coming from Pennsylvania. -- Al, Pittsburgh, Penn.

A. Both of you are right. You're right in trying to move your family from selfish gratitude to selfless gratitude. Your wife is right in wanting to have a warm, family celebration.

Go to a soup kitchen with your family on some other day, and spend Thanksgiving at home with your family. We also urge you not to visit a soup kitchen just for a feel-good moment. These holy and heroic places need help every day.

You might want to consider making a commitment to work at a soup kitchen regularly. In that way, you will not only feel good, you will get to know the clients. You will not just see their plight, you will feel it as well.

Q. The stores have already started playing Christmas carols and setting up holiday displays. The commercial hype around Christmas turns me into an exhausted cynical Grinch. I can't seem to find any honest spirituality in all the hype. We overbuy, overeat and overextend ourselves. -- Connie, Massepequa, N.Y.

A. Nobody puts a gun to your head forcing you to max out your credit cards and gain 10 pounds. These are choices you make, and you're free to make other, better choices.

Yes, it is true that the holiday season bombards us with the idea that buying this or that will bring happiness and spiritual fulfillment. We all know that's a lie, and we're strong enough to put the Christ back in Christmas and the Ha! back in Hanukah.

Try thinking up spiritually significant gifts for the season ahead: time spent with family members, homemade items, handwritten letters expressing thanks and love, photographs, favorite books, memberships to museums or health clubs, tickets to plays and athletic events, outings to parks and favorite places.

You can give music or musical instruments to get people playing, sporting equipment to get them moving and exercising, toys that challenge the creative impulse of children.

The holidays can survive all the commercial hype heaped upon them because their message is that we are loved, and we are not alone.